Guidance for sixth-form and further education colleges on preparing and submitting their financial plan and supporting commentary.

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College financial planning handbook 2019: financial planning requirements for sixth-form and further education colleges

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College financial planning handbook 2019: financial planning requirements for sixth-form and further education colleges

PDF, 847KB, 25 pages

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College financial planning template

XLSM, 1.51MB

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Cash flow forecast template

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 984KB

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Details

College financial planning handbook

The college financial planning handbook sets out ESFA’s financial planning framework for sixth-form and further education colleges. Colleges must refer to this document when preparing their plan and use the templates provided.

Financial planning templates

The financial plan and cash flow forecast templates must give a realistic view of financial performance and reflect the cost of implementing the college’s strategy.

Supporting commentary

Colleges must also prepare a supporting commentary, which sets out:

  • strategic and financial objectives
  • detail of the assumptions underlying the financial plan
  • explanations for year-on-year movements and variances
  • sensitivity analysis to key risks
  • explanations for how risks to cash flow insolvency are being managed
  • self-assessment of financial health grade
  • sufficient and relevant evidence to support any request to moderate a financial health auto-grade of ‘inadequate’ to ‘requires improvement’

Submission arrangements

Colleges must submit these documents to ESFA by Wednesday 31 July 2019.

The submission arrangements have changed for 2019, and colleges should now submit their documents via an on-line portal in IDAMS (Identity and Access Management System). Once a college has logged onto their IDAMS account they will be able to upload their documents by selecting the tile for ‘Financial Plan & Cashflow data upload service’. The three mandatory elements (financial plan, commentary and cash flow template) must initially be uploaded at the same time but can subsequently be resubmitted separately, if required. There is also an option to upload additional supporting documentation. Colleges will receive email confirmation that their upload has been successful.

Further details are available within the submission portal. If the person responsible for submitting these documents does not have access to the IDAMS system, they should first contact their IDAMS superuser within the college.

Please complete ESFA’s online enquiry form if you have any questions about your submission.

Ongoing monitoring

Corporations under ongoing ESFA monitoring arrangements should continue to submit management accounts, cash flow forecast templates and other information as required to [email protected].

Published 13 May 2013
Last updated 19 June 2019 + show all updates

  1. We have published the submission arrangements for colleges to submit their financial plan and supporting commentary.
  2. We have updated the college financial planning template and the cash flow forecast template.
  3. We have updated the college financial planning template. The changes are detailed in the ‘Contents’ tab.
  4. We have published the college financial planning handbook 2019: financial planning requirements for sixth-form and further education colleges.
  5. We have made minor amendments in the college financial plan template, details of which can be found on the contents tab of the template
  6. Updated College financial planning handbook 2018 and template have been added for 2018.
  7. New versions of the Financial planning handbook, College financial planning template and Financial planning template guidance uploaded on 14 June 2017.
  8. Revised version of College Financial Planning template uploaded on 17 June 2016.
  9. New version of College Financial Plan Template uploaded on 13 June 2016.
  10. New files titled College financial plan template and Financial planning template guidance uploaded on 13 May 2016.
  11. Financial planning handbook for 2016 to 2018 published.
  12. Published June 2015: Financial planning template
  13. Published June 2015: Financial Planning Handbook 2015 to 2017
  14. First published.